Post navigation

Healthy Diet Plans That Are Good for Diabetics: The VLCD

Avoiding or controlling diabetes is critically important. You know that healthy diet plans can go a long way here, but is there one that is good for diabetics?

Diabetes is a chronic condition that will require a lifetime of management and, most likely, a slowly progressive need for more and more medications. We can’t cure diabetes. Or can we?

We generally don’t think of a “cure” in medicine today, unless it is cancer we are talking about. And with cancer, it is looked at as more of a goal than an outcome. As a goal, we generate emotions with such words as cancer “cure” and “survival.” Emotions lead to donations (Hey! That’s a pretty good slogan…).

Back to diabetes. For those of you have been diagnosed with diabetes, did your doctor ever really discuss a cure? From what I see in my patients the lifestyle recommendations are usually token recommendations only. Carb counting, supportive nature of artificial sweeteners like Splenda and poor promotion of exercise seem to be the norm.

And then we have the brand new and shiny drugs that affect GLP-1 pathways like Januvia, Byetta and Victoza. These drugs are very expensive, of unsure effectiveness beyond currently available medications and are surrounded by concerns over thyroid cancer and destruction of the pancreas (this last one is my own concern, which I have covered in a prior blog post that can be read here).

And ultimately, all paths lead to insulin.

That’s pretty much the limit of what mainstream medicine has to offer. No wonder we never discuss a “cure.”

Based on my knowledge of physiology and the vast amount of medical literature I read related to diabetes, I can tell you that a cure is very possible, provided you are willing to make some serious changes. You cannot expect an answer within the lifestyle that made you diabetic in the first place.

Regular readers of the Rantings will know that I am a very big fan of calorie restriction without nutrient restriction. This comes in a variety of flavors, from long term caloric restriction to alternate day caloric restriction to a short term very low calorie diet.

This particular study looks at what happens in the brains of diabetics on a 4 day very low calorie diet. The results are heartening.

Before we go into the results, you need to understand what they hypothalamus does in the brain. It controls body functions such as temperature, hunger, thirst and fatigue. Let’s just say it’s really important.

In a normal person who is not diabetic, the hypothalamus responds to sugar in the bloodstream and responds appropriately. In diabetics, however, the hypothalamus becomes insensitive to glucose and does not respond the way it is supposed to. This is not a good thing.

Back to the study. Researchers put 10 type 2 diabetic males on a very low calorie diet (typically anywhere from 500-700 calories / day) and looked at what happened to glucose sensitivity in the hypothalamus.

As expected, all participants in the study showed an increase in sensitivity to glucose in the hypothalamus. (Tweet this)

What this means is that a very low calorie diet for a mere 4 days was able to begin the process of changing the diabetics system around. This is consistent with studies that have shown that insulin dependent diabetics can be off of insulin in 1 week on a very low calorie diet.

4 days of dietary changes can do something that not a single medication used to manage diabetes can do. And yet the recommendations given to diabetic patients remain rudimentary and basic and of little value.

For more than a decade, Dr. Bogash has stayed current with the medical literature as it relates to physiology, disease prevention and disease management. He uses his knowledge to educate patients, the community and cyberspace on the best way to avoid and / or manage chronic diseases using lifestyle and targeted supplementation.

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

What Others Are Saying

I had severe and limiting use of my right arm due to a fall while hiking, after a few sessions, I no longer have pain in my shoulder area and can raise my arm high in the air and rotate my shoulder for a full range of motion.

>> Brenda S.

When I came to Dr. Pangburn for Mesa Chiropractic treatment, I was walking like Quasimodo. I had had about every medical test available trying to determine why my hip was so painful. They all came back with the same results – no problem. Dr. Pangburn diagnosed the problem immediately, and within two months I was walking almost straight, with very little pain. I can only be thankful for Dr. Pangburns expertise.